Uniquity

Fair warning, I did not and would not pick this for myself. This came with my Vanilla Comoro order of “forever” ago and I am finally plucking up the courage to try it. Dry, there is a LOT of dust that I am blowing away and the scent is overwhelmingly cinnamon, like cinnamon hearts with cinnamon on top. I used to think I liked cinnamon but recently cinnamon has been a very unpleasant tea taste for me.

I let it steep two minutes and it is a fairly dark brown with a weird green tinge (that could be the mug’s fault) and a very dry cinnamon smell. Like cinnamon sticks, maybe. I can already feel the cinnamon on my tongue and I haven’t even taken a sip yet. First sips are true to smell. My tongue feels dry from the cinnamon and it lingers, as if I’ve eaten some powdered cinnamon or sucked on a cinnamon stick. I feel as it a bit of milk would improve this but I’m in switchboard with no milk to be found. It is a very dry feeling…if you don’t mind that (or you LOVE cinnamon) this will be great for you. I’m neither of those, unfortunately.

I wish the black tea would step up a bit and mask this horrid cinnamon. And I wish I had some whipped cream to eat and take the taste off my tongue (did I mention that this taste LINGERS?) I feel as though I could get a second steep out of this bag but since I don’t even want the first I will be throwing it out. Reminiscent of David’s Tea’s Saigon Chai but without the other spices to tame down the cinnamon.

I wasn’t going to rate this because I went into it knowing I wouldn’t like it, but I’ve decided that shouldn’t matter. If only people that like a tea rated it, there wouldn’t be any balance. I don’t feel particularly interested in finishing this cup, but I feel relieved that I have finally given it a try and no longer have to see it floating about my drawer and haunting me.

This was a highly anticipated treat. I was convinced that Canada Post had lost it, but luckily it arrived on Friday, almost a month from the day I ordered it. We tried it out at my grandmother’s over the weekend and really enjoyed the strong lime aroma. I didn’t get any cheesecake taste (very sad face) but I did get a wonderfully limey tea. I have a couple other lime teas from David’s Tea and I learned that I really enjoy lime in tea. Since the beau loves lemon, this seemed perfect. And honestly, if this had been marketed as a lime tea (no cheesecake!) or had the promised cheesecake flavour, it might have been perfect. For now, it’ll sit around 75, and I will continue to see if I can get that promised cheesecake flavour. Maybe it needs lower temps? I boiled it last time…but at least I got two solid steeps before we switched out of necessity.

My aunt was in Durham for July to work on her degree. Luckily, she brought me back some tea! I am fairly certain this is the tea I have, though mine is a 50 count of teabags rather than loose. I was thrown off at first by the talk of mangos and tropical fruits because I expected a black tea with rose (and nothing else) but the smell was very enticing. My grandmother thought it smelled terrible, but she mostly likes to mock my teas.

Last night, the beau and I decided to try it out. We sat around drinking tea with candles lit. Sounds romantic, right? Well, let me add that we were playing Magic. You know, the card game. Yup, we’re cool. Anyway, the tea actually impressed me. The black tea was very mild and the “troical” flavour more forward but in general it was still on the milder side. Granted, we steeped it a little weak, but I really enjoyed it. It was wonderful to sit and sip mindlessly which is exactly what I need sometimes. Definitely reliable and quite tasty, but I wouldn’t call it English Rose. I don’t know much about Rose teas but I didn’t identify any rose flavour.

Dear Detox,

Today, I love you. Last time, I didn’t. I wish I weren’t so wishy-washy, but, hey, what can I do? Today you are soothing, comforting and warming. Convincing me that my sniffles are not real and even if they are, you will kick their butt. I have spent the last 8 days at my grandmother’s without any legit tea and you are a wonderful way to return to the fold. You make me happy in these sad days after my grandfather’s funeral and you even remind me a bit of my beloved gin, of which I should very soon partake.

Thank you!

Finally trying this again. Dry smell is scrumptious, steeped I initially get standard black tea smell, albeit (artifically) sweetened. Upon closer inspection, there is a definite creamy berry sort of aroma, almost reminiscent of a french vanilla cappuchino. The black tea smell is a little disconcerting, not of the best quality. I’m positive I didn’t oversteep it, but it almost gives off that aroma. Looking at the leaves, they are very small and broken up, so I’m assuming that is the source of the ‘bitter’ smell. Hopefully, I am over-analyzing things.

The liquor is very dark and a little ominous. Lets dive in! First sips are (unfortunately) skewed by the onions from my lunch. Onion taste aside, there is a lingering sweet berry taste after the sip, but I get some of that bitter black tea at the front. It blends well with the vanilla to cover it up, I don’t really get a straight up bitter taste, but it definitely lacks the complexity and taste of some of my favourite black teas. This is one tea that only deteriorates as it cools, I prefer to drink it while hot before the bitterness becomes strong.

I definitely enjoy this but sadly have not been wowed like everyone else. I think that with a better base, this tea could really shine but at the moment it is held back by my impressions of the lower quality black tea. I’ve never had another Adagio tea before so I don’t know what they’ve used in this or what they use in general. I took a peek on the site but I didn’t see anything about the tea base. Anywho, this continues to be good but not stellar in my books and it makes me a little sad.

The aroma of this tea is wonderfully enticing. I gave it 2.5 minutes to steep and got a wonderful rich amber liquor. Closer to brown than anything, really. Steeped, it smells super sweet, not like a china black but more like a tea that has been dosed with honey. I take my tea unswetened but enjoy naturally sweet teas so we’ll see what I think of this.

First sips are really wonderful. More honey flavor and aroma than black tea taste but I can sense it hidden underneath. I’m off my black tea kick (though they are still favorites) but this is a wonderful treat. Many thanks to Ruth for having given me this sample months ago. If I happen upon this in my tea travels I will be sure to stock up! Mmmm..

Ps – I am on my iPod so I can’t rate this but it will get a solid 85 when I am on a real computer again.

edit: as it cools, it gets less obviously sweet and the black tea flavour really develops. Very very nice.

Once again, I was sucked in by the “new tea!” at David’s Tea. I went in to smell this and the Canada Day blend and left with a pre-filled bag of both. As a “white” (I use quotation marks because I have trouble seeing tea amongst all the other ingredients) this is one of the more expensive teas at DT – I think it was $10 for 50 g. In general I have no problem with white teas costing more but since I have trouble seeing any tea in here at all, I think this is a classic case of DT over-charging and hoping nobody notices. I bought the 32 g bag for $6.50 and feel a little ripped off by how little there is in here. There won’t be as many pots of this as I would hope for the cost, especially since they recommend 2 tsp of tea to a cup.

Cost woes aside, the smell of this dry tea is amazing. I have had a couple mango teas in my day and found none of them captured the smell or taste of mango. This one has the ripe sweet mango smell bang on. This is very exciting! Once I poured the water into the pot, I noticed a lot of little floaty bits that escaped my fine metal strainer. I know it’s picky of me, but I hate when bits make it into my cup…it keeps it steeping and generally sort of grosses me out. Minus points for cost and floaty bits, but big points for smell. Lets see how taste holds up…

The liquor is really quite yellow and honestly smells still quite a bit like mango. Maybe more mango juice than fresh mango, but that’s okay. Still doing better than my other mango teas. First sips are bright and juicy. Not necessarily mango but definite tropical fruit with an almost sharp taste. No tea flavour at all, but I’d be shocked if there was. This is actually really satisfying as a mango taste for me. If you’re not looking for tea flavour, this is a tea that I would think has a wide range of appeal. I could imagine enticing my grandmother with this one (but only if I told her it was herbal…she doesn’t like true tea to not taste like tea. If I called it a tisane, she’d be all over it). Similarly, I think my 2,3 and 6 year old cousins would love this iced.

I really like this and on a taste scale it deserves mid 80s. I don’t know that I will buy more because it’s just more expensive than I would prefer. It’ll be interesting to see if this can manage a re-steep, since tisanes aren’t so great for that usually and this might as well just be a tisane. I look forward to the adventure, though!

PS – Thank you Mother Nature for giving me a day cool enough to enjoy a hot cuppa in my (always hot) apartment without complaining! I think it would almost be worth having air conditioning so I could still have tea in the morning and at night.

Over time, this has gone from my favourite and first beloved loose tea to one that I turn to only in times of illness. I developed another summer cold after a marathon hospital visit to see my grandfather (now released and doing well, yay!) and the beau thought Detox might help. Now, to be fair, I was in a terrible mood when I drank this because I was sick again and absolutely tired of it, not to mention achey and sore. Anyway, I somehow mis-brewed this and didn’t end up with my usual potent juniper lemon mix. Instead I had a watered down mess. Drinkable and totally my fault, but saddening nonetheless. I still really enjoy this tea but I think that in my never-ending quest for more tea I might not refill this tin the next time it empties. I think we’ve had a solid 300 grams so far, my Detox friend. Thank you for that!

And that, as they say, is that. I’ve had a number of cups of this tea and I just am not in love with it the way I had hoped, or even that I was in the beginning. I gave the remains to a vanilla loving coworker and have freed myself of guilt.

When I look for a vanilla tea, I want a caramel sort of vanilla. I found this to be a coconut sort of vanilla. (I don’t know if I am the only one but I find strong vanilla smells and taste to be coconut-esque, and I don’t like coconut). Rather than force myself to like it, I’ve decided (quite rightly, I think!) to re-gift it to someone else who might enjoy it more. I wish I weren’t so prone to falling out of love with teas.. : (

Had a cuppa this with the beau this evening. It’s been a while since I had it and I always think it will be overpowering lemon based on the smell, but I find it’s actually milder in taste than in smell. I didn’t find it to be tart or bitter, but a nice citrus flavouring. Yes, it took over the oolong flavour (which I don’t mind, since I expected it) but there was still a depth to the body of the tea, reminding you of it’s oolong roots.

I drank a cuppa Creme Brulee this morning..I apologize, but it must not have been very memorable because it only just occurred to me to log it. I was looking for a yummy caramel-esque tea and was hoping this might be it. Not so. I had no trouble drinking the cup I prepared, and it was rather surprisingly flavoured like creme brulee (though I don’t have creme brulee that often).

However, it wasn’t memorable and both the beau and I declared we didn’t feel the need to buy more of it. I’m not sure if it is a problem with it being rooibos based and not feeling substantially “tea” enough for me, or if there was just something a bit off about the flavours. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, but it does seem like the sort of tea I would have really enjoyed at the beginning of my tea journey, but at the moment it doesn’t really fit into my tea desires. Sorry, creme brulee!

So, I’ve finally realized that I don’t like this. And I think it is partially to blame for why I (and many others, I’m sure) think they don’t like green tea. It leaves my mouth feeling dry and I grimace a bit when I take a sip. I know that a few months ago, I found this to be very pear like and quite tasty but right now I just want it to go away. Will be putting the remains of the tin in the staff room.

(Serious) backlog. I bought some of this last weekend, I think, on a whim. i am a pretty big fan of Davids Tea’s Lime Bang, and I was concerned this would be the same. Luckily, I was wrong. There is a disctinct creaminess to the tea, apparently frmo the yogurt pieces. The flavour was surprisingly accurate to lime gelato, though it could maybe have almost done with a hint more lime. This is one that I think I will re-buy, and am glad to have it. Will do a more detailed note another time…maybe at the time I drink it, for example. :)

Had a pot of this last night with the beau and a friend (at the beau’s insistance, surprisingly). Wasn’t as wowed by it as I hoped to be (I think I somehow anticipated the blackberry flavour to taste like the blackberries that grow by my Dad’s) but it was definitely a unique tea experience, for my cupboard at least. Will do proper tasting note next time I try it!

This evening, we’re sampling the beautiful golden snail, thanks again to SimplyJenW. The beau prepared this one, so it has double the leaf I would have used for our cups…accordingly, I anticipate a pretty serious cup of tea. The leaves don’t seem to have fully unfurled in the first infusion…I know black teas aren’t really meant to be re-steeped, but I do it pretty regularly and I find that Harney teas stand up to it really well. I’m fairly certain this will be another one that can take a couple goes.

The liquor is a deep brown with reddish tinge and has a wonderful chocolate aroma, much like the bakers chocolate my Mum uses for some of my favourite chocolate dipped cookies. Now I really want some of those cookies, I bet they’d be AMAZING with this tea…

First sips are strong chocolate flavour, rich dark bakers chocolate. At the same time though, it’s definitely tea. I really like it…odd since I always thought I hated the flavour of chocolate in tea. This is a good mix of a good black tea and my grandmother’s beloved cocoa. I don’t get a sweet chocolate taste at all, but at the same time there is a lingering sweetness in my mouth. This only confirms and continues my general adoration for black teas…Especially bold ones.

Question for you steepsterites: How does this compare to Upton Tea’s Golden Monkey? The beau and I are really interested in putting that one in our imminent order, but I don’t really know what to anticipate, and since it is one of the pricier ones in my very large order, I’m a little hesitant. I understand that Upton’s Golden Monkey isn’t really meant to be so cocoa as this, and that’s great by me, but I have it in my head that the Golden creatures must be at least a little similar.. : )

I can finally smell and taste again, yay! That means it’s time to delve into the treats that SimplyJenW sent me recently. I decided to start with Boston, based solely on it’s delicious dry smell. I get a distinct rich fruity smell, not much of a tea base underneath, but that’s fine. The liquor once steeped is a rich brown with a red/amber tinge…One of the colours I’d expect from a black tea.

The steeped smell is very rich and creamy, very thick smelling (if that’s even possible). No ‘tea’ smell, but an almost vanilla scent in there, reminiscent of vanilla comoro. I get a fruity smell, but nothing identifiably cranberry.

First sips yield a creamy fruity tea, with a hint of amaretto style almond aftertaste and a very slight tinge of bitterness. I gave this around 2 minutes 45 seconds, to avoid over-steeping. As the tea cools, the richness I initially experienced thinned out a bit, but the berry flavour became more dominant. I don’t know that I could identify it as cranberry, but it’s pretty hard to capture a flavour that specifically. This reminds me of another cranberry black tea I have from Joy’s Teaspoon called Crannyberry…though it’s been a while, so that might not be a true recollection.

All in all, this is really nice. Definitely an enjoyable cuppa, it seems a wonderfully absent-minded sort of tea. The black tea flavour continues to come out more strongly as the cup cools, and I’m enjoying that right now. I’m still in a straight black tea rut and really feeling that, but this is a great fruity alternative. Losing that slight hint of almond, but the fruit and tea flavours are more than enough for me!

Thanks again, SimplyJenW! I can’t wait to try the rest of my lovelies!

I was looking through my basket of samples this morning for something to inspire me when I happened across this. The beau and I developed head colds over the weekend, so an immunity tea seemed ideal, though a bit late. Unfortunately, that means this tea won’t get a proper review because I can’t smell things and accordingly can’t really taste them. I only had enough to make a pot for the beau and I so there is none left over for another try later on. I remember being really enticed by the ingredient list (probably because of the apple…I’m a nut for apple in tea, if it’s done well). I tried smelling the dry leaves but couldn’t get anything at all. Sorry, sports fans!

As for taste, keeping in mind that I have a cold, I can pick up vague hints of fruitiness. Maybe apple? Nothing I could define. There is a slight taste of licorice, but I don’t mind it for once. I also get a bit of the green rooibos flavour that I’ve never been able to describe but can finally identify…Not going to give it a rating as I can’t taste it, but hoping it does something good for my head. If nothing else, it soothed my throat!

This is a mixed-up tea for me. While visiting family over the weekend I only brought a few teas with me. This was one of them. My grandmother, aunt, beau and I sat down to enjoy a pot of it (I got my grandmother to drink “fancy” loose leaf tea!!!) and we all had very different reactions. I found it to taste like an orange creamsicle, the kind with vanilla ice cream inside and orange popsicle outside. I found it had a slight tinge of mintiness, but no-one else picked up on that. It smelled fantastic, and made an interesting yellow liquor. I assume that the gooseberries contributed a lot to the flavour, but I don’t know what a gooseberry tastes like. My grandmother found it to be very floral..

I re-steeped the leaves later on for myself, but I found it had a very muted flavour which I couldn’t really identify (though I did develop a cold.) I really enjoyed the creamsicle sort of flavour I got the the first time around, but it is starting to seem very similar to the Spring Collection’s Pink Flamingo, which also reminds me of Joy’s Teaspoon’s Wellness. All this is fine and good but my final thought is that it’s not a re-buy…it’s too similar to other teas I have and just doesn’t stand out in the crowd. I’m finding that more and more with David’s Tea’s selections lately…Maybe after a year of drinking mainly DT I am getting tired of it???

I’m not much of a green tea fan, but this is one of the first I tried at David’s Tea about a year ago now and I still enjoy it. I get no green tea flavour or smell from it at all, as it is wildly potent with orange more than anything else for me. The cranberry is very muted…so much so that I never taste it, but that’s okay. As an orange flavoured green, I really do enjoy it. One of the teas that became a “gateway” tea before I knew anything at all…and a sign that my tastes might never become refined, : )

Finally getting around to this sample…Not a fault of Butiki Teas, just a lack of time on my own, and far too many options!! Steeped a pot of this while waiting for homemade pizza dough to rise, was enticed by the sweet creamy smell. Had a rich smell, for a honeybush. Steeped, the liquor is a deep reddish brown and the vanilla aroma is wafting through the apartment. It continues to be a rich vanilla smell, more reminiscent of a vanilla cake than of artificial vanilla, if that makes sense.

First sips are as rich as they smell…wonderfully delicious, shockingly thick mouth-feel for a honeybush as I find it to be thinner, much like rooibos. I am really impressed with this tea. I know that everyone has a vanilla tea, but this one really stands out for me. I think I like the natural smoothness and sweetness of the honeybush base to complement the vanilla. This is a success, for me! : )

Well, I’m still terrible at distinguishing aspects of black teas, but this is just mostly mild for me right now. It has a very nice smoothness, and a mild black tea flavour. I prefer this to the Davids Tea English Breakfast I had yesterday, but for it’s price point ($8/50g) this just does not cut the mustard. I’m not picking out any special notes…I think my breakfast of buttered toast is overpowering the tea.

This is the sort of black tea that requires no additions (though I don’t add anything to my tea anyway) and that I think even bagged tea drinkers could have no objection to, other than cost. I’m not getting any bitterness or astringency, but I always steep my blacks a bit on the lighter side. Nice to have tried, but I want something more distinctive and affordable to have on hand regularly. Why are Davids’ unflavoured black teas so pricey? Gah.

Hm. This morning, this is really quite delicious. Maybe it’s a mood thing? Anyway, it’s not complex, but it is nicely rounded. Really quite yummy. I’m getting that china black sweetness I love today…Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’m okay with it. : )

This is a tea I would never had considered without provocation. I don’t like the tought of banana in tea, and had no urge to even try it until I smelled the tin in store. Somehow, that delicious smell convinced me to try it. Retrospectively, it smells sort of like those banana marshmallow candies…far more like candied banana than real bananas, but it’s a nice smell.

I bought 26 g of it to try out…and after smelling a brewed cup, I think I might regret that choice. The smell of the steeped tea has a weird pungent edge that I don’t appreciate at all…still a candied banana smell as well. Why am I having this at 10 am after having only eaten a cheesecake ball for breakfast? Apparently I am a sucker for punishment..

First sips give are unimpressive. The taste matches the weird smell I got from the tea. I know that my dislike is partially my own fault, as I’m not feeling the greatest, but this might have been a mistake. There is a very weird taste mixed in with the sugary banana. Maybe the green rooibos base? I’ve had green rooibos in other teas, but I could never identify it. I think I will let this cup cool and try it cold, see if that is any more impressive. For me, this is not a tea I should have tried, so I’m not going to rate it. It’s probably a 30 for me. Not extremely disgusting, but definitely something I don’t ever want to drink.

This is a perfectly yummy mint green tea…and there is no shame in that! Unfortunately, It only gets an ‘average’ rating because it tastes…well, average. Most of the 52Teas I have had have really stoofdout in one way or another, which made them rise to the top of my selections. This is nice, but I never feel drawn to drink it. More of an “everyday, use it ‘til it’s gone” sort of tea. Again, nothing wrong with that!